Devastating Report On Record Greenhouse Gas Levels

[problemecium]

Argued poorly by making up facts- yes.

I'll grant you that my argument is a bit patchy. Especially toward the end of that I was being a bit philosophical - we don't have to be nuts to think of ourselves having a grand destiny of saving the world and so on. Personally as I sort of mentioned I'd rather leave the big natural processes alone as much as possible.

But I didn't make any of that up. I'll also grant that I was perhaps not looking at a big enough picture (imagine that xD) when I said 200 million years. I just spent 20 minutes or so fact-checking myself and indeed, over a mere 200 million years the atmospheric composition hasn't changed all that markedly. In fact I should have caught myself saying that, but I was a bit sleep deprived. However!

http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309100615/gifmid/30.gif

Looking at billions of years, there is indeed a trend. A noisy one, easily affected by conjecture (and a wealth of feedback mechanisms and smaller fluctuations), but a trend nevertheless. And that was the best graph I could find - information about large-scale trends like that is hard to dig up amidst the piles and piles of debate articles about the human influence. Still, billions of years ago it isn't unsafe to wager that there was a lot more carbon dioxide around here, and that if one extrapolates into the future the trend will lead to zero. It isn't certain, of course, but it isn't preposterous.

[Mr Shifty]

I'll also grant that I was perhaps not looking at a big enough picture (imagine that xD) when I said 200 million years. I just spent 20 minutes or so fact-checking myself and indeed, over a mere 200 million years the atmospheric composition hasn't changed all that markedly. In fact I should have caught myself saying that, but I was a bit sleep deprived. However!

http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309100615/gifmid/30.gif

Looking at billions of years, there is indeed a trend. A noisy one, easily affected by conjecture (and a wealth of feedback mechanisms and smaller fluctuations), but a trend nevertheless. And that was the best graph I could find - information about large-scale trends like that is hard to dig up amidst the piles and piles of debate articles about the human influence. Still, billions of years ago it isn't unsafe to wager that there was a lot more carbon dioxide around here, and that if one extrapolates into the future the trend will lead to zero. It isn't certain, of course, but it isn't preposterous.

A billion years ago there were no multi-cellular lifeforms on planet Earth. 200 million years ago was when the first early species of dinosaurs were starting to emerge, when the Earth's landmass was still Pangaea. I think we're sort of losing perspective of the timescales here.

[Kryten]

In billions of years the earth is going to cook. You can scoop off the whole damn atmosphere and it won't change that one iota.

[Bacterius]

In billions of years the earth is going to cook. You can scoop off the whole damn atmosphere and it won't change that one iota.

Well done, that was extremely deep and insightful. Now if you could explain how events that will (inevitably?) occur a few billion years from now are relevant today, on our timescale, and hence of relevance to this thread

[Kryten]

Try reading parameciumkid's posts; he's saying there's a trend of lowered CO[sub[2 over billions of years (there is, but only because of the evolution of multicellular life and the setting up of the long-term carbon cycle, it's been pretty stable since then), and that adding more will 'save the planet' from us running out in another few billion years.

[Bacterius]

Try reading parameciumkid's posts; he's saying there's a trend of lowered CO[sub[2 over billions of years (there is, but only because of the evolution of multicellular life and the setting up of the long-term carbon cycle, it's been pretty stable since then), and that adding more will 'save the planet' from us running out in another few billion years.

Ah, okay. Noted, missed that post (wasn't sure what you were replying to )

[78stonewobble]

Just a side comment on those long term historic high co2 levels and mass extinctions.

It's pretty easy to imagine that anything leading to a mass extinction will also cause massive co2 releases. Ie. supervolcano releasing massive amounts of co2 from trapped inside the earth or asteroids/comets vaporising/killing sizeable amounts of life/trees/certain rocks releasing co2 trapped in those.

[Ralathon]

It seems a lot of you are stuck arguing if something is natural or pollution. Which is completely the wrong way of looking at global warming in my opinion.

Regardless of whether you define rising CO2 as natural or pollution, in either case the climate will change. According to the best models we have right now this change in the climate will result in desertification of fertile lands, increased extreme weather and rising sea levels. This means we will lose farmland to feed ourselves, our infrastructure will take a pummeling and our coastal cities run an increased risk for major floods. All these things will cause large scale suffering and trillions of dollars in economic damage. So climate change is something we want to prevent regardless of whether its the 'natural' thing to happen.

[lajoswinkler]

Just to add that, contrary to the popular opinion, the average sea level doesn't have to increase dramatically in order to cause huge problems. Few centimetres, combined with extreme weather, will for example require erecting dikes around Manhattan. Otherwise the subway system will be gone, roads will be under water.

Add tides to all of this, and you're in for a treat.

[Dominatus]

...and now more methane seeps are popping up. Take a look at the other thread on this.

[magnemoe]

Just to add that, contrary to the popular opinion, the average sea level doesn't have to increase dramatically in order to cause huge problems. Few centimetres, combined with extreme weather, will for example require erecting dikes around Manhattan. Otherwise the subway system will be gone, roads will be under water.

Add tides to all of this, and you're in for a treat.

Well tides should not come as an surprise Naturaly if you have maximum tide and get hit by an storm you can get an problem.

Note that the major problem is not raising sea level but that land sink because you use up the ground water. This is that causing Venice to sink. I assume the same is a problem around Manhattan.

[Wanderfound]

Flooded subways are the least of it; it's the political flow on that's gonna cause the most damage in the short term.

For example: pretty much the entirety of Bangladesh is within a couple of feet of sea level. Their neighbours are large, nuclear armed, and have a long and recent history of military conflict. How do you think China and India are going to react when 100 million Bangladeshi climate refugees land on their doorstep?

This is just one example. There are countless analogous situations all over the world. Climate change is a hazard multiplier; it makes all of the existing problems dramatically worse.

[SorryDave]

Polar ice melting causes global warming.

I am an optimistic person and believe that in one billion years CO2 will not be an issue anymore.

The earth will adjust and intelligent squids will be speculating on the mysterious demise of the great ape civilization.

I believe that the scientific evidence of global warming from rising CO2 is hard to deny, as well as the cause being human activity. We should all be concerned when humans drastically affects the environment at levels not generated since the time when a stone axe was the most advanced technology.

On a positive note, I think it will be my kids generation that has to address it as some scientist don't predict enough impact for another 20-100 years. Whew.

In the mean time, I am trying to develop a solar powered green house gas generator to help eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel for rising the temperature of the earth.

[Wanderfound]

On a positive note, I think it will be my kids generation that has to address it as some scientist don't predict enough impact for another 20-100 years. Whew.

Unfortunately, no.

Due to the existence of positive feedback loops and the substantial inertia of climate systems, climate change is in some ways analogous to a long-incubation disease like HIV. By the time you're obviously ill, it's too late to stop the damage.

Over the last thirty years, the refined predictions and observations have been reliably trending towards the worst-case scenarios. The ice is melting faster than hoped, the methane clathrates are bubbling off as we speak, and "Lake North Pole" has been a reliable summer appearance for several years now. Severe climate impacts are going to affect people alive today.

[TranceaddicT]

Ok, because Venus got something that Mercury doesn't?

Look at this one...

Earth - 0.039% carbon dioxide

Mars - 95.97% carbon dioxide

where is that global warming effect on Mars?

If it occurs on Earth because of CO2 then why not on Mars?

And you do realize that Mars has 1/100 the atmosphere of Earth? So your 95.97% CO2 is more like .9597% Earth equivalent.

[SorryDave]

Unfortunately, no.

Due to the existence of positive feedback loops and the substantial inertia of climate systems

If you are correct than we can only hope that this will help drive some action that has a positive impact on the environment.

Maybe a scientifically literate country will take meaningful action. The cure is as simple as the cause, don't burn fossil fuels.

Until then, the evidence suggests that this will not be addressed by the same generation that continues to deny the impact of the damage they cause.

Twenty years until an ice free Arctic is still on the minority of climatologist studies even with the impacts you mention.

[Seret]

The cure is as simple as the cause, don't burn fossil fuels.

That's hardly simple. You can't just yank away 86% of the world's energy supply overnight. It needs to be a slow, managed transition. Realistically fossil fuels are going to make up a large chunk of our energy use for the next couple of generations at least.

[Wanderfound]

That's hardly simple. You can't just yank away 86% of the world's energy supply overnight. It needs to be a slow, managed transition. Realistically fossil fuels are going to make up a large chunk of our energy use for the next couple of generations at least.

Yes, it needed to be a slow, carefully managed transition. But it needed to happen thirty years ago, when the global scientific community told y'all that it needed to happen. All those researchers calling for urgent, emergency action back in the 1990's weren't doing it for fun.

We're out of time. On a sane planet, we'd shut down the global coal industry today. Even if we do that, we're still probably screwed; the evidence of the last few years strongly suggests that we have already passed irretrievable tipping points.

Sudden and drastic transition would cause immense economic and social harm. But the alternative is worse. We're well into "get it done now, whatever it takes" territory.

[Seret]

Sudden and drastic transition would cause immense economic and social harm. But the alternative is worse. We're well into "get it done now, whatever it takes" territory.

Even if you're right, it ain't going to happen. We don't have the technical solutions available for some things (eg: air transport) and for the rest it's a matter of overcoming a huge amount of inertia and vested interests. There's also not really any way in a capitalist democracy to mandate that people adopt really uneconomic solutions, so new systems need to be developed to the point where they're attractive to the industry.

[Wanderfound]

Even if you're right, it ain't going to happen. We don't have the technical solutions available for some things (eg: air transport) and for the rest it's a matter of overcoming a huge amount of inertia and vested interests. There's also not really any way in a capitalist democracy to mandate that people adopt really uneconomic solutions, so new systems need to be developed to the point where they're attractive to the industry.

It can be done, though; witness the rapid transformation of US industry during WWII. In just a few years, they went from an economy that was still largely agrarian to having the ability to pump out a few dozen aircraft carriers in a year. The USSR managed a similar trick, jumping from a virtually medieval economy that had been further impaired by decades of civil war to something that was able to spam T34's at a ridiculous rate.

The problem is political, not technological. We have (or at least had) the ability to prevent this disaster; we're just choosing not to do so.

[78stonewobble]

Yes, it needed to be a slow, carefully managed transition. But it needed to happen thirty years ago, when the global scientific community told y'all that it needed to happen. All those researchers calling for urgent, emergency action back in the 1990's weren't doing it for fun.

We're out of time. On a sane planet, we'd shut down the global coal industry today. Even if we do that, we're still probably screwed; the evidence of the last few years strongly suggests that we have already passed irretrievable tipping points.

Sudden and drastic transition would cause immense economic and social harm. But the alternative is worse. We're well into "get it done now, whatever it takes" territory.

Now if only we had a powersource 30 years ago, which didn't release co2. We could have been shifting even our cars to electricity now (without just shifting the problem of co2 release from cars to powerplants).

Oh wait... We did...

Gee thanks greenpeace and anti nuclear people, whats 125.000.000 dead when, thank god it's not in our own backyards.

...

Well I'm still optimistic and privileged. I live in a country, where we can manage pretty much anything, but the worst, that mother nature can throw at us. Sadly, 5-6 billion of the worlds population won't be as fortunate.

[Dominatus]

Now if only we had a powersource 30 years ago, which didn't release co2. We could have been shifting even our cars to electricity now (without just shifting the problem of co2 release from cars to powerplants).

Oh wait... We did...

Gee thanks greenpeace and anti nuclear people, whats 125.000.000 dead when, thank god it's not in our own backyards.

...

Well I'm still optimistic and privileged. I live in a country, where we can manage pretty much anything, but the worst, that mother nature can throw at us. Sadly, 5-6 billion of the worlds population won't be as fortunate.

Yes, we had this. In fact, if you research thorium you would come to the stunning realization that we knew about it's safe nuclear benefits this entire time. Which is irritating. Politics called for nuclear weapons, meaning we needed plutonium and uranium. And guess what super-efficient nuclear reaction has a minimal uranium by-product? Thorium. Currently, most funding for this is coming from India. India is leading global research on a super-efficient, really common nuclear fuel source without risk of meltdown. I mean seriously? Do we just not care? Is enviornmental awareness just for those "hippie types"? It's ridiculous. Most people don't worry and figure someone else will solve the problem, if not flat out denying there is a problem.

[Wanderfound]

Now if only we had a powersource 30 years ago, which didn't release co2. We could have been shifting even our cars to electricity now (without just shifting the problem of co2 release from cars to powerplants).

Oh wait... We did...

Gee thanks greenpeace and anti nuclear people, whats 125.000.000 dead when, thank god it's not in our own backyards.

...

Well I'm still optimistic and privileged. I live in a country, where we can manage pretty much anything, but the worst, that mother nature can throw at us. Sadly, 5-6 billion of the worlds population won't be as fortunate.

Speaking as someone who used to work at a reactor...

Fission has its own major problems, although they're not quite the problems that the general public perceives them as. Waste disposal isn't a major issue, weapons proliferation is a major issue, water consumption is a moderate issue, and safety...well, the problem there is again political rather than technological. A well-designed modern fission plant, run by sane and competent people, is well within the bounds of acceptable safety.

But show me where we'll find a sufficiently large group of sane and responsible people in North Korea. Or Syria. Or Russia, for that matter. Chernobyl wasn't caused by fission, it was caused by Russian.

That is not within the bounds of acceptably safe. And there is no need to take the risk; non-fission renewables can do the job just as well. Not any one of them, but all of them: hydro, geothermal, wind, tidal, solar (both thermal and PV), etc. And, most important of all, efficiency. Most of the problem is not that we can't cleanly produce sufficient power; it's that we insist on wasting vast amounts of power in ridiculously idiotic ways. Single use aluminium packaging; 24/7 lighting and aircon; single-occupant commuter vehicles driven by large-block V8's; etc.

We're dying of stupidity.

[78stonewobble]

Speaking as someone who used to work at a reactor...

1. Fission has its own major problems, although they're not quite the problems that the general public perceives them as. Waste disposal isn't a major issue, weapons proliferation is a major issue, water consumption is a moderate issue, and safety...well, the problem there is again political rather than technological. A well-designed modern fission plant, run by sane and competent people, is well within the bounds of acceptable safety.

2. But show me where we'll find a sufficiently large group of sane and responsible people in North Korea. Or Syria. Or Russia, for that matter. Chernobyl wasn't caused by fission, it was caused by Russian.

3. That is not within the bounds of acceptably safe. And there is no need to take the risk; non-fission renewables can do the job just as well. Not any one of them, but all of them: hydro, geothermal, wind, tidal, solar (both thermal and PV), etc. And, most important of all, efficiency. Most of the problem is not that we can't cleanly produce sufficient power;

4. it's that we insist on wasting vast amounts of power in ridiculously idiotic ways. Single use aluminium packaging; 24/7 lighting and aircon; single-occupant commuter vehicles driven by large-block V8's; etc.

We're dying of stupidity.

1. Well I've never said nuclear fission power, was without problems or completely safe. However, as it turns out now, it is the "lesser of evils". As it is, the path we are on, will, as estimated by the UN, be worse than 12.000 chernobyl sized nuclear accidents in terms of lives lost (or 500 if you go by rather exaggerated chernobyl casualty figures).

2. Well I'm pretty sure that the "capitalist" (in airquotes) tendency to save money, was atleast partially responsible for the non adequate seawall at Fukushima, but I agree, nuclear powerplants are not something you want to be stupid about (or greedy or cheap). However, if we we're allready producing significant amounts of nuclear power in the vest, where we presumably could do it safer, then enviromentally, we could "afford" that some nations went a cheaper/simpler coalpowered route.

3. Except you can't use hydro everywhere, nor necessarily geothermal and we still don't have the capacity in any large scale to store the power from wind, tidal or solar power (we could use giant hydrogen storages, but I'm betting thats gonna turn out allmost more dangerous than nuclear power on the scale needed) on a scale to fully power a western country.

4. Or computer games or internet forums for anything, but the most necessary things. While I agree in principle that there are lots of ways, where we could use less ressources, I tend to think one should be very carefull of deciding what others can and cannot have and/or what other people are "supposed" to think is important.

[PakledHostage]

And, most important of all, efficiency. Most of the problem is not that we can't cleanly produce sufficient power; it's that we insist on wasting vast amounts of power in ridiculously idiotic ways. Single use aluminium packaging; 24/7 lighting and aircon; single-occupant commuter vehicles driven by large-block V8's; etc.

We're dying of stupidity.

I think that is a very important point. It is easy to point the finger of blame at someone else... "Stupid hippies and their antinuclear campaigns!", etc. But everyone should ask themselves " What am I doing to solve this problem?" What have we, as individuals, done to reduce our energy consumption? Do we really need an F150 to drive to work? Do we need to fly to Vegas for the weekend? Do we need the A/C running all summer? A lot of energy consumption is wasteful. Cutting down on that waste at the individual level will make a big difference if we all work on it.